Famous Pursue Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Pursue poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pursue poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pursue poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Sonnet X

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 243] SONNET X. Nell' età sua più bella e più fiorita. HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.  E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear swayIs wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,Leaving on earth her fleshly veil...Read more of this...

Sense, seeking happiness, bids us pursue

by Omar Khayyam
Sense, seeking happiness, bids us pursue
All present joys, and present griefs eschew;
She says, we are not as the meadow grass,
Which, when they mow it down, springs up anew....Read more of this...

Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage...Read more of this...

Strange Are The Ways Of Men

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 STRANGE are the ways of men,
And strange the ways of God!
We tread the mazy paths
That all our fathers trod.

We tread them undismayed,
And undismayed behold
The portents of the sky,
The things that were of old.

The fiery stars pursue
Their course in heav'n on high;
And round the 'leaguered town,
Crest-tossing heroes cry.

Crest-tossing heroes cry;
And martial fifes declare
How small, to mortal minds,
Is merely mortal care.

And...Read more of this...

Christopher Found

by Amy Levy
 I.

At last; so this is you, my dear!
How should I guess to find you here?
So long, so long, I sought in vain
In many cities, many lands,
With straining eyes and groping hands;
The people marvelled at my pain.
They said: "But sure, the woman's mad;
What ails her, we should like to know,
That she should be so wan and sad,
And silent through the...Read more of this...

All In The Golden Afternoon

by Lewis Carroll
 All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict...Read more of this...

Looking-Glass River

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Smooth it glides upon its travel, 
Here a wimple, there a gleam-- 
O the clean gravel! 
O the smooth stream! 

Sailing blossoms, silver fishes, 
Pave pools as clear as air-- 
How a child wishes 
To live down there! 

We can see our colored faces 
Floating on the shaken pool 
Down in cool places, 
Dim and very cool; 

Till a...Read more of this...

Universal Prayer

by Alexander Pope
 Father of all! In every age, 
 In ev'ry clime ador'd, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 

Thou Great First Cause, least understood, 
 Who all my sense confin'd 
To know but this, that Thou art good, 
 And that myself am blind: 

Yet gave me, in this dark estate, 
 To see...Read more of this...

Do not be ashamed

by Wendell Berry
 You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had...Read more of this...

203. Sylvander to Clarinda

by Robert Burns
 WHEN dear Clarinda, 1 matchless fair,
 First struck Sylvander’s raptur’d view,
He gaz’d, he listened to despair,
 Alas! ’twas all he dared to do.


Love, from Clarinda’s heavenly eyes,
 Transfixed his bosom thro’ and thro’;
But still in Friendships’ guarded guise,
 For more the demon fear’d to do.


That heart, already more than lost,
 The imp beleaguer’d all perdue;
For frowning Honour kept his...Read more of this...

Give not vain thoughts free access to thy mind. Drink

by Omar Khayyam
Give not vain thoughts free access to thy mind. Drink
wine throughout the year, and always cups filled to the
brim. Pursue the daughter of the vine and aye rejoice,
for it is better to enjoy the daughter without leave of
law than know the mother with her full consent....Read more of this...

Pray to What Earth

by Henry David Thoreau
 Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,
Which asks no duties and no conscience?
The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path
In some far summer stratum of the sky,
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs
The snow dust still emits a silver light.
Under...Read more of this...

Sonnet VI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VI. Sì traviato è 'l folle mio desio. OF HIS FOOLISH PASSION FOR LAURA.  So wayward now my will, and so unwise,To follow her who turns from me in flight,And, from love's fetters free herself and light,Before my slow and shackled motion flies,[Pg 6]That less it lists,...Read more of this...

The Cuckoo

by John Clare
 The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight,
With narrow pointed wings
Whews o'er our heads—soon out of sight
And as she flies she sings:
And darting down the hedgerow side
She scares the little bird
Who leaves the nest it cannot hide
While plaintive notes are heard.

I've watched it on an old oak tree
Sing half an hour away
Until its quick eye noticed me
And then it whewed...Read more of this...

Ye Mariners Who Spread Your Sails

by Victor Hugo
 ("Matelôts, vous déploirez les voiles.") 
 
 {XVI., May 5, 1839.} 


 Ye mariners! ye mariners! each sail to the breeze unfurled, 
 In joy or sorrow still pursue your course around the world; 
 And when the stars next sunset shine, ye anxiously will gaze 
 Upon the shore, a friend or foe, as the windy quarter lays....Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXXIII. S' io fossi stato fermo alla spelunca. TO ONE WHO DESIRED LATIN VERSE OF HIM.  Still had I sojourn'd in that Delphic caveWhere young Apollo prophet first became,Verona, Mantua were not sole in fame,But Florence, too, her poet now might have:But since the waters of that spring no moreRead more of this...

Dream Song 132: A Small Dream

by John Berryman
 A Small Dream

It was only a small dream of the Golden World,
now you trot off to bed. I'll turn the machine off,
you've danced & trickt us enough.
Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled
from the second floor, fail to impress your mother
and I am the only other

and I say go to bed! We'll meet tomorrow,
acres of threats dissolve into a smile,
you'll be...Read more of this...

287. Song—The Battle of Sherramuir

by Robert Burns
 “O CAM ye here the fight to shun,
 Or herd the sheep wi’ me, man?
Or were ye at the Sherra-moor,
 Or did the battle see, man?”
I saw the battle, sair and teugh,
And reekin-red ran mony a sheugh;
My heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough,
To hear the thuds, and see the cluds
O’ clans frae woods, in tartan duds,
 Wha glaum’d...Read more of this...

Parting from Abbot Zan

by Du Fu
 Hundred river daily east flow Traveller go again not rest My life bitter float drift What time have end limit Zan abbot Buddhism old Banish come capital Still by earth dust bother Fairly show emaciated appearance Willow twig morning in hand Bean fruit rain thereafter ripe This body like float cloud What can boundary south north Different...Read more of this...

Reformation

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Gentleman, most wretched in his Lot, 
A wrangling and reproving Wife had got, 
Who, tho' she curb'd his Pleasures, and his Food, 
Call'd him My Dear, and did it for his Good, 
Ills to prevent; She of all Ills the worst, 
So wisely Froward, and so kindly Curst. 
The Servants too experiment her Lungs, 
And find they've Breath...Read more of this...

You, who both day and night the world pursue,

by Omar Khayyam
You, who both day and night the world pursue,
And thoughts of that dread day of doom eschew,
Bethink you of your latter end; be sure
As time has treated others, so 'twill you!...Read more of this...

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

by John Trumbull
 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state...Read more of this...

Verses On A Butterfly

by Joseph Warton
 Fair Child of Sun and Summer! we behold
With eager eyes thy wings bedropp'd with gold;
The purple spots that o'er thy mantle spread,
The sapphire's lively blue, the ruby's red,
Ten thousand various blended tints surprise,
Beyond the rainbow's hues or peacock's eyes:
Not Judah's king in eastern pomp array'd,
Whose charms allur'd from far the Sheban maid,
High on his glitt'ring throne, like you could...Read more of this...

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

by Ogden Nash
 The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient...Read more of this...

Among the Pines

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Here let us linger at will and delightsomely hearken
Music aeolian of wind in the boughs of pine,
Timbrel of falling waters, sounds all soft and sonorous,
Worshipful litanies sung at a bannered shrine. 

Deep let us breathe the ripeness and savor of balsam,
Tears that the pines have wept in sorrow sweet,
With its aroma comes beguilement of things forgotten,
Long-past hopes of the...Read more of this...

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